“Are Mormons Closer to Muslims or Christians?” by Ms. Eliza Wood

First of all, of course, the question is misconceived. It’s rather like asking whether Fords are closer to automobiles or water buffaloes. Fords are automobiles. And Mormons are Christians.

But perhaps Ms. Wood can’t really be blamed, because, quite plainly, she’s entirely unqualified even to have an opinion on the subject.

“Islam,” Ms. Wood says, “is about as close to Christianity as Mormonism.”

Well, actually, no, it’s not. And I say this as a Mormon who is, professionally, an Islamicist.

“Both Islam and Mormonism,” Ms. Wood declares, “have teachings from the Christian Bible and believe Jesus was ‘a prophet,’ but they had prophets after Jesus that they believe to be more authentic and current than Jesus.”

I have no idea what Ms. Wood means by “more authentic,” but I can’t really think of any significant sense in which any believing and reasonably intelligent Latter-day Saint would agree that Joseph Smith, or Brigham Young, or Thomas S. Monson, or any other modern prophet is “more authentic” than Jesus.

“More current”? Well, yes, but only in the trivial sense that Jesus lived out his mortal life in first century Palestine while Thomas Monson is alive right now.

But, anyway, while Islam regards Jesus as a very great prophet, he’s still a mortal and a creature and not divine. Mormonism, by contrast, believes Jesus to be divine, the only begotten Son of God. That may be a small detail in Ms. Wood’s mind, but others might think that it would have been worthy of at least brief mention.

“Jesus’ teachings,” Ms. Wood somewhat obscurely says, “were a bit archived in both because Muhammad and Joseph Smith were both visited by angels who told them to receive new orders from God. Both have respected Jesus’ messages but moved forward with other teachings and practices that are not consistent with Christianity.”

But this is merely to say that Mormonism isn’t consistent with Ms. Wood’s version of Christianity, whatever that may be. It’s rather as if, defining squirrels as non-mammals, Ms. Wood were to point to the things that distinguish squirrels from giraffes, killer whales, and Bengal tigers as “not consistent with being mammals.” That would be not only rather eccentric but obviously circular.

“Islam teaches that Muhammad was the last prophet,” Ms. Wood informs her audience, “and Mormonism teaches that a line of prophets extended from Joseph Smith all the way to the present with Thomas S. Monson, who is currently considered their prophet.”

Well, yes. But Ms. Wood doesn’t really explain how the fact that Islam believes the final prophet to have died in 632 AD while Mormonism affirms that there is a living prophet on the earth today supports her claim that the two religions are similar.

“While in some ways neither Islam nor Mormonism is very much like Christianity,” writes Ms. Wood, who has never actually defined Christianity, but who appears to believe that merely asserting that Mormonism isn’t Christian does that work for her, “the two faiths actually have a lot of similarities. For example, both had founding prophets who received visits from an angel, leading to revelation of Scripture. Both consider the family unit as the foundation for religious life, and both have an insistence that religion is their complete way of life.”

Insisting that religion is a way of life is scarcely unique to either Islam or Mormonism.

And, while both Islam and Mormonism consider family life important, their respective theologies of family bear only the most superficial resemblance to each other.

Yes, though, both religions do really include visits from angels within their founding stories. Among many thousands of potential similarities and differences, that’s one example. But the stories and the roles of the angels are quite different in Islam and Mormonism.

Fasting and ritual cleansing (e.g., baptism) are common to religions worldwide, not merely to Islam and Mormonism.

“They both believe theirs is the original religion of Adam,” Ms. Wood writes.

But so, historically, have mainstream Christianity and Judaism.

“Both Islam and Mormonism,” says Ms. Wood, “allowed four wives but both forbid homosexuality and bisexuality.”

Very few religions have traditionally celebrated homosexuality and bisexuality. It’s true, however, that both Mormonism and Islam have allowed polygamous marriages. Islam still does. Mormonism does not. But, while Islam limited men to four wives, Mormonism never did.

“Both religions,” Ms. Wood explains, “forbid alcohol and gambling.”

Mormonism and Islam are scarcely unique in frowning upon gambling and alcohol.

“This may be alarming to some,” writes Ms. Wood, who very likely hopes that her readers will be alarmed, “but both Islam and Mormonism teach that marriage can extend into the afterlife.”

It’s not at all clear that Islam teaches a continuation of marriage into the afterlife.

“Neither worships their founding prophets,” continues Ms. Wood, “but both hold them with special respect.”

Does Ms. Wood seriously believe that Christianity hasn’t been a missionary faith from its very beginning? Has she ever read the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles? What does she think St. Paul was doing on all those trips back and forth across Anatolia and the Mediterranean? Relaxing on the Lido Deck of a luxury cruise ship?

“In order to lead,” claims Ms. Wood, “both Islam and Mormonism do not require formal seminary training, but take regular members and move them up into leadership roles.”

Ms. Wood seems to presume that the Apostle Peter and his colleagues were professional clergy with seminary degrees.

In any event, she’s wrong about Islam. To the extent possible, Islamic clergymen are formally trained at such places as (for Sunnis) Al-Azhar University in Cairo and (for Shi‘is) the theological seminaries in Qum, Iran.

“Oddly enough,” marvels Ms. Wood, “both religions had a split after their prophet’s death with one side believing that the faith should continue though the prophet’s descendents and the other side rejecting that. For Muslims, this caused the bloody divide between Shiites and Sunnis that we hear so much about in the press. For Mormons, this caused the divide between the Later Day Saints, which make up about 99 percent of Mormons, and others.”

That’s Latter-day Saints, actually. With two t’s. And, yes, there is a curious similarity in the two schisms. But it’s unclear that there is any real significance to it. It’s almost certainly mere coincidence.

“Both Muhammad and Joseph Smith were taunted for their work and driven out by locals,” reports Ms. Wood. ”Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina, and Joseph Smith had to move from Illinois to Missouri.”

Actually, Joseph Smith was obliged to move from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois, where he was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob. Not from Illinois to Missouri.

Medina already existed long before Muhammad arrived. Joseph Smith essentially created Nauvoo. And it wasn’t a city-state. It wasn’t independent. It had a charter that was granted to it by the legislature of the State of Illinois. For part of his time in Illinois, Joseph Smith served as the elected mayor of the city.

“Both Islam and Mormonism have Scripture that can justify violence and murder,” asserts Ms. Wood, “as does the Bible.”

“While Mormons have not acted violently in the U.S. for quite some time, there was an incident back in 1857 called the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which happened on Sept. 11. The massacre was led by prominent Mormon leader John D. Lee, who was trying to exact revenge on some emigrants but when the emigrants surrendered, the militia killed men, women and children in cold blood, and then tried to cover it up.”

“We don’t need to be experts on either religion,” Ms. Wood announces, “to see these similarities.”

Truth be told, Ms. Wood’s case would be best served if no expert on either religion were within several leagues of her article, because no real expert could possibly take her superficial and cherry-picked similarities at all seriously.

“They both have common ground with Christianity,” Ms. Wood generously allows, “and much of it.”

Just as the bullfinch and the American border collie both have common ground with the class of mammals, and much of it. But, in the latter case, it shouldn’t be missed that collies are mammal-like for the simple reason that they are mammals.

Ms. Wood goes on to explain that “both Islam and Mormonism are at best very distant cousins of Christianity with some of the same overarching guidance.”

It’s impossible to know what Ms. Wood means by the phrase some of the same overarching guidance. But here are some facts about Mormonism that she somehow fails to mention: Mormons believe, while Muslims do not, that Jesus atoned for our sins, that we must be baptized in his name, that he is our Redeemer, that he is the Only Begotten Son of God, that his is the only name under heaven whereby humankind has any hope of salvation, that he was crucified, that he physically rose from the tomb on the third day, that he ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God the Father, that he is the second person (with the Father and the Holy Spirit) of the Godhead, and that he will return again at the last day to judge the living and the dead.

But she’s provided not a single actual fact to justify her position with regard to Mormonism. (Muslims, of course, don’t claim to be Christians.)

“If,” continues Ms. Wood, “a Christian of any denomination inadvertently walked into a Mormon tabernacle or a mosque, which would be fairly difficult since both allow only members of their faith to enter, there is no way the service could be recognized as a Christian devotion to Christ, but there is plenty of devotion to God going on.”

Flat nonsense. All Mormon tabernacles (there aren’t that many of them) are open to the public, as are all Mormon chapels, the ordinary places of Sunday worship. As are virtually all mosques. Ms. Wood is confusing Mormon temples, which are closed to the public, with Mormon chapels. This is an elementary distinction that somebody presuming to lay down such judgments as Ms. Wood is offering ought to be clear about.

The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City

The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City (directly adjacent to the Temple)

A Typical Mormon Meetinghouse or Chapel

But Ms. Wood is wrong, in any case. Every prayer in every Mormon service and every sermon given is closed “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Every week, the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is administered in Mormon worship services, commemorating Christ’s atoning flesh and blood. Hymns are sung about Christ and his sacrificial atonement. Lessons are taught and talks given about Christ. Paintings of Christ adorn the walls of our buildings. The name of Christ is emblazoned on their external walls: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Mormon proclaims itself “a second witness for Christ.”

The Christus Statue, on Temple Square in Salt Lake City

Ms. Wood is bearing false witness, a sin explicitly condemned in the Bible.

“All three of these faiths,” writes Ms. Wood, “have scores of excellent people, possibly some who would make excellent American leaders and even U.S. presidents. But, the next time you read in the press about how Mormons are really Christians, you might want to put on your critical thinking cap.”

I hope you’ve already put it on, so that you won’t be taken in by Ms. Wood’s garbled misinformation.

“It rarely is the religion but the candidate’s behavior that determines if she or he is a good person,” Ms. Wood concludes, “and that is what Americans really care about, but getting a bit snowed is getting a bit old, don’t you think?”

Yes, it’s grown a bit old. So one has to wonder why Ms. Wood is still attempting to snow people. My suspicion, given the fact that Islam worries and even terrifies many Americans, is that she’s attempting, in a not very subtle and not very ethical way, to demonize Mormonism and to damage Mitt Romney by linking them with Muslims and terrorism. Which, if true, is both disingenuous and irresponsible.

P.S. I note that, in one of her responses to the comments following her article, Ms. Wood asserts that both Muslims and Mormons consider themselves Christians. This is absolutely, flatly, unambiguously false. Muslims do not claim to be Christians, any more than Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs do. Islam, though plainly part of what might be called the Abrahamic tradition — Arab Muslims often term Judaism, Christianity, and Islam together al-adyan al-samawiyya (“the heavenly religions”) — is a separate and distinct faith.

P.P.S. A friend has written to suggest that I be explicit about my qualifications to comment on Mormonism and Islam together, and perhaps I should: I’m a Mormon or Latter-day Saint myself, a former missionary and an ordained bishop in the Church, and a rather extensively published author on Mormon topics (including a book, Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints, on whether Mormons are Christians). I’m also a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University, the Church’s flagship school. I’ve lived in Jerusalem for a year and in Cairo for four years, and visit the Middle East and the Islamic world every year (twice so far this year, with at least one more trip coming next month). I hold a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in Arabic and Islamic intellectual history; teach courses on Arabic, Middle Eastern history, and Islam; edit a series of dual-language classical Islamic texts that is distributed by the University of Chicago Press; and, among a fairly large number of other relevant things, have published a biography of Muhammad.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Thanks for your in depth perspective – I’m sure most Latter- day Saints who read Eliza Woods’ article thought: “wouldn’t it be great if Daniel Peterson could write an article in response to this.” And voila.

I was the one who wrote the comment in the post to which she responded that Muslims and Mormons ‘think’ they’re real Christians.

We can only hope that our continued dialogue and persistent promulgation of our tenets will reach those who know not the truth, nor where to find it.

Hmm… I read the Huffington Post piece and agree it was pretty shoddy when it comes to facts. But I wonder if the sort of snippy responses Mr. Peterson has offered (“Ha, ha, it’s not a tabernacle, it’s a temple; and by the way, she misspelled ‘latter’”) do anything to truly educate the folks who were the intended audience of the original article, or if they only serve to side-step a legitimate concern that Ms. Wood has so inartfully given voice to.

The fact is that, fairly or not, both Muslims and Latter-day Saints are seen by many Americans as “other”. Readers here are probably aware of the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in August of 2007 (the last time Mr. Romney’s candidacy brought this subject onto the national stage), reporting that Mormons were viewed unfavorably by a high percentage of respondents, exceeded only by Muslims and atheists.

Frankly, I believe most of us citizens know very well that there are scores of different Christian denominations in nearly every county of this country. Most folks I know feel it’s none of our business whether a particular religious group calls themselves Christians or Saints or Martians, for that matter.

But I also know many who harbor honest suspicions that religious groups they view as marginal may be willing to subvert our American principles of religious freedom by the use of force. Many, like me, see little real difference between a Muslim in Afghanistan willing to beat a woman to force her to wear a hijab, and a Mormon in America willing to pay for a law that forces other citizens and other churches to obey LDS marriage doctrine.

If Mr. Peterson actually cares about the basic issues that give rise to commentary like the Huffington Post article, he would do well to spend more time addressing these honest concerns and less time correcting some reporter’s spelling.

You spent far more time, effort, and space lamenting my brief correction of Ms. Eliza Wood’s spelling than I spent correcting it, and, thus, have misrepresented my response. And her misspelling wasn’t altogether trivial; it actually changed the official name of my church.

Nor is her confusion of Mormon chapels with Mormon tabernacles, and of Mormon tabernacles with Mormon temples, a small error without consequences: She made a false claim about Mormon Sunday services, and then compounded it with a false claim about our supposed denial of public access to our Sunday services — a claim that has the effect, whether intended or not, of further marginalizing Mormons as The Other (which I do suspect to have been the overall purpose of her article).

You implicitly criticize me for failing to respond to your concern about Mormons and same-sex marriage. But I was replying to Ms. Eliza Wood’s article, and her article doesn’t raise that issue.

Finally, as you know full well, I responded methodically (if cursorily), point by point, to most if not all of Ms. Wood’s assertions, not just to her error about our Sunday services and not only to her misrepresentation of the name of the Church.

Yes, you have responded to Ms. Wood’s assertions point by point. If your intent was to fact-check for a reporter, you succeeded, and if you are only preaching to the choir then you have already sung several verses.

But I have apparently failed to express my concern and the concerns of other non-Mormons if you believe this is only about the marriage issue. To be very specific, it is my impression that Americans distrust adherents of religious faiths they suspect may wish to subvert the American principle of religious freedom. They expressed this distrust of John Kennedy in 1960 and he responded more or less successfully. They suspect Muslims for the same reason and they now also suspect members of your faith.

They–or to be more precise, WE–see Muslim extremists in other countries who are willing to enforce sharia law upon citizens not of their faith, and we see Mormons who are willing to use their wealth and power to enforce LDS religious doctrines upon their neighbors.

This principle of using force to compel others to obey one’s religious beliefs is foreign to most Americans. But it is the single and, so far, uncontested answer to the question in the title of Ms. Wood’s article. You have failed to answer otherwise.

I still fail to see what is wrong in the fact that my response to Ms. Eliza Wood’s article responded to the points she raised but didn’t respond to your point. Your point is, no doubt, an important one, and I may well write on that subject at some time in the future. But my failure to respond to your concerns in a reply to an article that didn’t mention your concerns can’t reasonably be described as a defect in my reply.

As to “enforc[ing] LDS religious doctrines on our neighbors,” I simply don’t see it. We don’t enforce belief in the Book of Mormon or our concept of the Trinity, don’t compel attendance at our weekly meetings, don’t demand adherence to our view of revelation, don’t proscribe coffee, don’t bar those who disbelieve in an antemortal life from voting, don’t stone adulterers, don’t prosecute those who disrespect our faith. Nor do we seek to coerce people into paying tithes and offerings — which, by the way, in Austria and Germany we could legally do (but expressly refused to do when offered the chance).

Yes, I’m happy to provide an example, as you requested. Before Nov. 4, 2008, my church and over 200 other California churches and synagogues gladly welcomed legal marriages for same-sex couples in our own congregations. Now we cannot do so. The only difference is the passage of a ballot measure that was spearheaded and funded principally by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and which was to some extent funded by Church funds obtained through religious tax exemption.

This ballot measure used the force of law to realize the principles advocated in the LDS doctrinal publication “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, promulgated by the First Presidency in 1995.

Mormons used money to cancel weddings in my church, and to assure that no other legal marriages would be celebrated among the members of my congregation unless they meet the specific dictates of the leaders of your faith.

The jury is still out on whether this action was legal. The only two federal courts to consider the matter so far have determined it was not. But the question as it relates to the subject of professor Peterson’s post is whether this constitutes the use of force to compel others to obey your religious rules, and whether such an action likens you in the eyes of the general public to Muslim extremists who do the same thing “in the name of God”.

Yes, I agree that you have answered the specifics of the Huffingtom Post reporter’s ignorant assertions. I realize you consider my concerns irrelevant to the subject of that reporter’s article and, while I believe they speak to the very substance of her principal question, I respect your opinion. I do hope you choose to address these concerns at some future time.

While I personally happen to agree with you that Proposition 8 was not good public policy, you have employed unreasonable hyperbole in describing Mormon support for that ballot initiative as “Mormons using their wealth and power to enforce LDS religious doctrines upon their neighbors.” Latter-day Saints saw this as an issue of social and moral good, not the advancement of a Church doctrine.

Church doctrine discourages homosexual relationships altogether, and requires ecclesiastical discipline on those who engage in them. If Mormons were trying to “enforce LDS religious doctrines,” they could have advanced an initiative to outlaw homosexual conduct altogether. Quite the rather, however — the Church has actively supported anti-discrimination laws and civil unions.

And, even if Latter-day Saints wanted to “enforce LDS religious doctrines” at the California ballot, they couldn’t — Mormons make up less than 2% of the California electorate. In fact, it was the Roman Catholic Church who first approached the Latter-day Saints about supporting Prop 8. There are many, many more Catholics in California than there are Mormons; are Catholics like Muslims because they want to force others to live Catholic doctrines? A enormous majority in California’s black community voted for Prop 8; are black people like Muslims because they want to force others to live the doctrines of black churches?

So your argument is simply ridiculous. Disagree with the Church’s stance on Prop 8 is you wish, but specious comparisons between Prop 8 and Sharia law only harm your side of the public policy debate.

Thank you for your opinions, Mike Parker. I’m not able to answer whether what I’ve said is “unreasonable”, “specious” or “ridiculous”, as you claim. I suppose we’ll have to allow any reader to determine for himself whether assessments like these should be considered reasonable.

I don’t want to deviate from the subject of Professor Peterson’s article regarding whether there is a similarity between Mormons and Muslims, but it appears your points are these:

1. Latter-day Saints saw their involvement in California’s Prop 8 as an issue of social and moral good.
–So do Muslim extremists who enforce their religious rules upon others.

2. Mormons did not attempt to enforce all their religious rules.
–Rather, they enforced only those rules expressed specifically in the last paragraph of the Family Proclamation of 1995. Muslim extremists also do not attempt to enforce all their religious rules. Extremists do tend to pick and choose.

3. Latter-day Saints only did what others were also doing.
-–Apart from the fact that my son abandoned this excuse when he turned 9, this claim is simply inaccurate. Mormons singled themselves out repeatedly: They gave more to the Prop 8 campaign than all other groups combined. Their First Presidency disseminated specific requests for votes and money in a letter that was required reading in all sacrament meetings in June of 2008. Their Church used tax-exempt money to produce campaign ads (http://www.youtube.com/user/preservingmarriage?feature=results_main) and to run a Church-owned campaign website (http://www.preservingmarriage.org). No other religious group did anything remotely similar. And no other religious group distinguished itself, as did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by becoming the only church in history to be fined by my state for violating our campaign laws in connection with these political activities.

Once again I must question, as do many Americans, whether Mormons respect our American principles of religious freedom (and their own 11th Article of Faith), or whether their actions demonstrate that they are in no substantial way different from Muslim extremists who use force to compel others to obey religious rules they sincerely perceive as “issues of social and moral good”.

Once again I must question, as do many Americans, whether Mormons respect our American principles of religious freedom (and their own 11th Article of Faith), or whether their actions demonstrate that they are in no substantial way different from Muslim extremists who use force to compel others to obey religious rules they sincerely perceive as “issues of social and moral good”.

The supporters of Proposition 8 did not use force in their campaign. That is a substantial difference between them and the extremist you cite. Don’t you agree?

Hi, Logophile. No, I do not agree. The force of law is one of the most potent forces in our society, and Mormons used that force in this instance to do great harm to their neighbors’ families.

One can quibble over whether some forces are “better” than others, or whether the use of force is sometimes justified. But the fact remains that there are tens of thousands of California couples who formerly had the right to marry and have now been forced to abandon their hopes of that possibility. There are scores of California churches who formerly celebrated legal marriages for members of their own congregations and who have now been forced to abandon those sacraments.

Americans have only to turn on the TV to see Muslims who use the force of law in other countries to compel others–including non-Muslims–to obey their religious beliefs. And they see Mormons who are willing to do the same thing in this country. It should be no surprise at all that they then come up with honest questions like the one Ms. Wood asked.

Remind me again who held a “democratic” vote on your right to marry and on your Church’s right to perform legal marriages as it sees fit?

If memory serves, the year was 1895. That year sits with 2008 as the only two occasions in US history when American citizens who formerly had the right to marry saw that right removed by force of law, the result of a “democratic” vote.

Plenty of religious rules that carry the force of law in Muslim countries enjoy the support of large majorities of citizens, whether you consider their governments “authoritarian” or not. And those rules are regularly enforced upon citizens who do not believe in them, just as your marriage doctrine has been enforced in California.

You are free to offer the opinion that a US law resulting from a “democratic, constitutional ballot initiative” is a good thing, but if your claim is that such a law does not constitute the use of force, I’m afraid you are on shaky ground.

Let’s talk when the Latter-day Saints begin their campaign to impose Mormonism on the world by terrorism and insurrection.

You are right about one thing: the law can be a potent weapon. I would argue that (some) activists who promote same-sex marriage seek to use the force of law to restrict the religious liberties of others. That issue is tangential to the present discussion, however, so I will not address it here. (It is discussed at http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/08/same-sex-marriage-and-religious-liberty/).